Black Voters Mattered: A Philadelphia Story

By W. Wilson Goode Sr.

The idea for this book grew out of my deep appreciation for recorded history. I've learned that unless the facts are written, people will soon forget them. So it is important to document the history of the personalities and events that led to my election in1983 as the first African American mayor of Philadelphia, to properly record and connect events so that future generations will understand and appreciate our struggle and our achievements. This book attempts to connect some of the events and personalities of the U.S social and civil rights movements with the movement in the City of Philadelphia between 1968 and 1983 that resulted in a dramatic increase in Black political empowerment. While many of the individuals involved in these events were African Americans, there were also some non-African Americans who played crucial roles in bringing about the transformation. This book will attempt to chronicle all of their roles and put them in chronological order, so that those who read this in the future will know how these events took place.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Jul 1, 2018
• ISBN: 9781543930061

Book preview

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CHAPTER 1

The Northern Civil Rights Movement in Philadelphia

Philadelphia is the birthplace of the nation. It is the center of democracy as we know it in the United States of America. One might imagine that the quest for democratic principles burns in the hearts and souls of all Philadelphians. Two particularly significant events that took place in this city have inspired Black Philadelphians who are students of history, and demonstrate how far from equal justice the city was at one time.

The death of Octavius Catto was the first. . Octavius Valentine Catto was born on February 22, 1839 in Charleston, South Carolina to a mixed-race mother and a father who was a former slave and millwright. After he was freed, Catto’s father became a minister and moved the family north to Philadelphia, where Octavius became a student at the Institute for Colored Youth (now Cheyney University). After graduation, Catto became a major player in the civil rights movement, working with the likes of Frederick Douglass to help enlist Black platoons for the Union in the Civil War. He was also an excellent baseball player who played a huge role in establishing Philadelphia’s reputation in the world of Black baseball.

On October 10, 1871, Catto was on his way to vote when he was murdered by a man named Frank Kelly. Kelly was never convicted of any crime. Catto became one of the original martyrs of the Black political movement in Philadelphia.¹ His actions and protests, his unwillingness to accept a status quo that was unjust and unequal, set a precedent for the Black political movements of the next century.

The second watershed event was the Philadelphia Transportation Company (PTC) drivers’ strike of 1944, when America was deep in the conflict of World War II. Philadelphia had become a major production center for war supplies. This increase in work opportunities led to an influx of population, especially among poor Black people who hailed predominantly from the South. One frequent place of employment for these people was the Philadelphia Transportation Company. However, the PTC refused to give Blacks any positions higher than that of conductor or motor-man. Retaliation against this racial discrimination climbed steadily, as the Black community reached out to the NAACP. Eventually the federal government got involved, with President Roosevelt’s 1943 executive order that required every government-operated business to enforce a non-discrimination clause. This development and the increasing need for extra personnel led the PTC to decide to allow the promotion of Black employees to drivers beginning August 1, 1944. White employees attempted a sickout strike, but the federal government put an end to that within a week by threatening to enter striking employees into the military draft. The newly hired Black workers were allowed to keep their jobs.² This successful stand against racial discrimination foreshadowed the Civil Rights Era in Philadelphia, as well as the city’s eventual election of a Black mayor.

The reform movement of 1950 produced a Home Rule Charter, which gave Philadelphia the right of self-governance. The subsequent election of the first mayor under the charter ushered in a period of progressive politics in the city. The election of Joseph S. Clark as mayor and Richardson Dilworth as district attorney planted the first seed for my election in 1983, some 33 years later.

Joseph S. Clark

Joseph Sill Clark, Jr. was born on October 21, 1901 in Philadelphia. His father was a national doubles tennis champion, and his mother’s uncle had invented Tabasco sauce. He attended Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania for law school.

After passing the bar, Clark made his first unsuccessful foray into politics in 1926. Two years later, he switched to the Democratic Party and founded the Democratic Warriors Club with Richardson Dilworth. The goal of the club was to help eradicate the political corruption that engulfed Republican-dominated Philadelphia.

After serving in World War II, Clark won the position of city controller by 100,000 votes in 1949 and used this position to investigate several corruption allegations against the Republican regime. He went on to defeat Republican mayoral candidate Daniel A. Poling in 1952, to become the first Democratic mayor of Philadelphia since 1884. Clark was the first mayor to operate under the new rules of the Home Rule Charter, and was well-known for ushering in the Clark-Dilworth era of reform in the city. After serving one term, he won a seat in the Senate and served two terms until he was defeated in 1968. He died on January 12, 1990 at the age of 88.³

The 1950 mayoral election was a clear break with Philadelphia’s history of single party political rule, a tradition that many considered to be corrupt and non-inclusive. The election of Clark and Dilworth was a strong indication that single party rule was over. Moreover, the election of Raymond Pace Alexander and Marshall Shepherd, Sr. as part of the Clark-Dilworth team indicated that the city’s new leadership wanted to be inclusive. The Progressive era would last until 1962. The establishment of the Home Rule Charter and the subsequent elections of Joseph S. Clark and Richardson Dilworth set the foundation for political empowerment for the next century.

Richardson Dilworth

Richardson K. Dilworth was born on August 29, 1898 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He attended Yale University and served in the Marine Corps in both World Wars. After unsuccessful runs at the Philadelphia mayor’s office in 1947 and the state governor’s office in 1950, he won the Philadelphia district attorney election in 1951 and went on to succeed Joseph S. Clark, Jr. in 1955 as the city’s mayor. He and Clark were renowned for their overhaul of the Philadelphia political system. Some of Dilworth’s most notable achievements in office include the reversal of the decline of Center City and his strong opposition to private school segregation. He resigned in 1962 to launch an unsuccessful second bid for governor. He was chair of the Philadelphia School Board. He died on January 23, 1974 at the age of 75. ⁴

When Joseph S. Clark, Jr. was inaugurated as mayor of Philadelphia in 1951, he became the first mayor to serve under the new Home Rule Charter, which gave his office more power. New rules included the creation of a managing director position, and elected officials were banned from running for new positions without first resigning from their existing posts. Clark was the first Democrat to be elected mayor of Philadelphia since 1884. His election represented a move away from the corruption-plagued Republican regime. Clark used his new seat to help clean up the corruption in the system. He focused upon the police department and the municipal government as a whole. Clark also took this opportunity to open the concept of a career in city government to the African American population of Philadelphia – something that he claimed years later was his most important achievement as mayor.⁵

Raymond Pace Alexander

Raymond Pace Alexander was born on October 19, 1898 in Philadelphia. He was forced to work several jobs while balancing school and church after his mother died of pneumonia when he was 11. He went on to attend the University of Pennsylvania on a merit scholarship, and became the first African American to graduate from the Wharton School of Business. He got his law degree from Harvard University in 1923, and moved back to Philadelphia to begin his career.

He and his wife, Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander, who was the first Black woman to earn a law degree from the University of Pennsylvania, went on to become powerful figures in the city. Raymond Alexander served as president of the National Bar Association from 1933 to 1935, and assisted the NAACP with high-profile cases involving the segregation of public schools in Chester County. He later served on Philadelphia City Council from 1951 to 1958, and became the first African American judge appointed to the city’s Court of Common Pleas in 1959. He died on November 24, 1974. Alexander’s influence on civil rights and law in Philadelphia is still felt today.⁶

In 1956 Clark became a U.S. senator and was succeeded as mayor by Richardson Dilworth. Dilworth is remembered for having continued the progressive trend in Philadelphia that was initiated by Clark. Some of the notable achievements of Dilworth’s term include the revival of Center City as an economic hub, and the city’s commitment to fight segregation in private schools. His term is widely considered to be a continuation of the reform movement sparked by the rebound of the Democratic Party in municipal politics, and is therefore another seed that led to the eventual political autonomy of the City of Philadelphia.

Marshall L. Shephard Sr.

Rev. Marshall L. Shepard, Sr. was born in Oxford, North Carolina, on July 10, 1899. He was educated in the public schools of Oxford, and continued his studies at Virginia Union University in Richmond, VA, graduating with a B.A. degree. He later pursued graduate studies at the Quaker Graduate Center in Wallingford, PA, and was awarded honorary doctorates by several colleges and universities. Rev. Shepard’s rich background in various endeavors – including employment as a Pullman porter, steel worker and cook –both increased his skills in the area of human relations and helped to fund his college education. After prayerful consideration, the Rev. Shepard left the comparative financial security of the Abyssinian Baptist Church to become the second pastor of the Mount Olivet Tabernacle Baptist Church. His meager salary of fifteen dollars a week was hardly sufficient to support his wife, the former Lucille Owens of Sumter, SC and their family, which by then included a second son, Samuel Augustus, who is today an ordained minister. When Shepard offered the invocation at the 1936 Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, Sen. Ellison D. (Cotton Ed) Smith of South Carolina walked out to protest the spectacle of a black man praying. When the Democrats met